Dream and Reality
by LostPerspective
Summary: *GSR* My first fic, very dark, CD Grissom's subconcious works out his feelings after his resignation. Spoilers up to 19 Down.


Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, otherwise I would dangle Grissom off a cliff until he agreed

to go find Sara.

Author's Note: I not very good at creative writing, but am absolutely addicted to FF and though I

would attempt to give something back, especially seeing as Grissom's leaving next episode. Please

be as nice as possible, this is my first fic. I would also like to say thank you to the people who write

fanfic, because it successfully distracts me from doing homework.

P.S. This is a very dark fic, so be warned!

Two months.

It had been two months since he'd left his job, two months since he'd handed the reins of CSI over to

Catherine. He didn't regret his decision, his job had made him nothing but miserable for the last few

months, no longer even serving as a distraction any more, but he couldn't help but wishing he had

something, anything, to do. Wasn't his resignation supposed to make things better? Make the pain

he had been feeling go away?

But, the honest truth was, it hadn't. The pain had dulled to a throbbing ache, but it hadn't made it

better. For the past two months he had mainly stayed in bed, something he hadn't even done when

he was a teenager, instead wanting to go to his nearby beach and find seagulls unfortunate enough

to be caught in a piece of wire and dissect them. He almost smiled at the memory; it had driven his

mother crazy. Sara had just laughed when he told her. Hank, seeming to recognise his master's

suffering, gave a small sympathetic whine, although he didn't bother to lift his head from its

position next to Grissom on the king sized bed. Why did it always have to come back to Sara?

Despite her physical absence, her presence in his mind had plagued him ever since she left, even

more so when she had sent him that video. That video, the one that had made him feel more pain

than he ever had, but some part of him insisted he watch every day. Her words haunted him in his

dreams, her semi-lifeless body in the desert clinging desperately to life, her smile made slightly less

rewarding when pixelated in her webcam, waiting for him in his office after Warrick's death and the

other images his mind had made up. Nightmares had become a regular occurrence, his mind

creating horrifying situations, dying at the hands of every killer he'd come across, finding similarities

in every victim he'd ever known.

He was back there, the alley. Grissom knew what was about to happen, it was another of his

nightmares, thankfully not including Sara. But it was even more terrible, because this was reality. His

feet moved the way they had that night, his face displayed the same emotions. Only his thoughts

were different. His cynical mind commented morbidly on the cliché of a dark alley. What had Neils

Bohr said? "There are some things so serious you have to laugh at them"? That was it.

He had reached the car, and pulled Warrick out, trying to shut his eyes and sprit himself away from

this place, this time, this situation. But, try as he might, his eyes wouldn't close. Taking off his jacket,

he noticed something was different. He wasn't wearing what he had worn that night. His shirt,

although barely recognisable, wasn't striped blue and white. His jacket was his CSI vest. And the

cliché dark alley, wasn't an alley. He was in their bedroom, his bedroom. And it wasn't Warrick.

It was her.

The Undersheriff wasn't there either, and Sara wasn't looking at him, trying desperately to gurgle to

Grissom that he had been the killer. She was looking at him, the same sorrow haunting her eyes as

had inhabited them when she had left Vegas the first time. There was such a desperate depth to that

sadness, but there was also love, acceptance and, the most frightening of all, a total lack of hope.

And then, she smiled, she smiled like she had in that webcam message, and all her previous

emotions were replaced by a level of joy so high it was even more terrifying. And she spoke, without

emotion,

"Honestly, I think it's better this way."

Her eyes glittered like those sparklers you played with when you were a kid, and she looked happier

than he had ever seen her. And then the life drained out of her, and they dulled, empty. He became

aware of their, no, his surroundings, and realised that her cause of death wasn't a bullet shot from a

dirty cop's gun, but a stab wound, straight through the heart he had caused so much to pain before.

And his fist clenched around something hard, then released it.

A kitchen knife clattered to the floor.

And he never woke up. Because you can't escape reality.

_Wake up, stop dreaming  
I'm talkin' 'bout dream and reality  
I'm talkin' 'bout love and brutality  
And I'm saying wake up  
Wake up_

_-Wang Chung, "Wake Up Stop Dreaming" (featured in To Live and Die in L.A., which I don't own either, but highly recommend, not least because it features William Petersen. Naked!)_

Press the button and review!


End file.
